Computing devices and communication networks can be utilized to exchange information. In a common application, a computing device can request content from another computing device via the communication network. For example, a user at a personal computing device can utilize a software browser application, typically referred to as a browser software application, to request a Web page from a server computing device via the Internet. In such embodiments, the user computing device can be referred to as a client computing device and the server computing device can be referred to as a content provider.
In some cases, the client computing device may communicate with the content provider through a proxy service. The proxy service, which may be hosted by a proxy server, may provide an intermediary service between the content provider and the client computing device. The use of the proxy service can result in a number of benefits including anonymity, auditing, data loss prevention, and to implement access policies.
Some browsers and proxy services implement features for reducing page load times as perceived by end users. For example, some browsers and some proxy services predictively pre-fetch and cache content, and some browsers predictively pre-connect to web servers in anticipation of content requests. While these features are useful, additional reductions in perceived page load times would benefit both users and content providers.